Has someone’s presence ever made a difference for you. It has for me. What is it about being present that brings hope? Is it that you feel special? Is it because you know that someone cares about you? Does it make a difference who is present with you that brings hope? What characteristics of a person that is present brings you hope? Let us look at what God has taught me about being present that brings hope.
I have learned that during my many experiences that having people being present when I am having difficulties means a great deal to me. It makes me feel like I am not alone, that I am cared for and there is hope for the future. After I lost my wife I met with a group of people who had lost a loved one to suicide. All of them said that the most important thing that you could do for them was to have people be present. They did not need someone to talk to but rather have someone who just sat down with them or someone who would be there in a moment’s notice.
I have also found that people are busy and cannot always be there for me. I have found someone who is always present with me and always there to listen to me and always there to comfort me. Hebrews 13:5 says, “Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.”’ (ESV) This promise is so important for me because I struggle with being alone. But I have come to the conclusion that I need to stop depending upon my feelings and start depending upon the Word of God. My feelings are unreliable where the Word of God is always reliable because God cannot lie. It is not that God does not lie it is that He cannot lie because it would be against His nature to lie. Hebrews 6:17-18 says, “So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us.” (ESV) So the fact that God cannot lie and that He has said He will never leave me or forsake me helps me to know that He is always present during all my life. During the good times but also in the bad times. Pastor Troy Dobbs gave an inspirational message on Christmas 2023 that helped me to better understand God’s presence and the hope that it brings me.
I pray that you too will live in the presence of God and that you with trust Him to care for you no matter the situation and get hope from Him. Understanding that Jesus is the only source of true hope. The death of Jesus Christ on the cross satisfied the penalty for my sins and yours as well. It satisfied all my sins from the past, in the present and in the future. My penalty and yours was satisfied on the cross by the death of Jesus, God’s greatest act of love and wrath, who became sin for me and you. It was also God’s greatest act of faithfulness because “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8 (ESV) Because wisdom shows us, we need to believe in Jesus. I hope that you join me in helping others to choose Jesus.
If you have not read my previous blogs, you can find them here. You can watch a book trailer about my book. You can find my book, Hope Amid Hopelessness: Our Abba Father Provides a Way Through Mental Illness here. eBook or Audiobook versions can be found at Westbow Press or Christianbook.com at Amazon or Google.
I mentioned that I was going through a difficult time right now. If you are interested in what I am going through, you can read about it here.
